Zulu-land;

Front matter

LIFE AMONG THE ZULU-KAFIES

OF

NATAL AND ZULU-LAND,

Chapter 1. Page

CHAPTER 11.

Terra Natalis, Christmas Land ; as seen by Early Voyagers. 18 CHAPTER III.

Position and Geographical Features of Natal 32

CHAPTER IV.

The Seasons and Climate — The Nocturnal Heavens 39

CHAPTER V.

First European Settlement at the Cape — Migrations of the Dutch Farmers previous to their arrival in the District of Natal 48

CHAPTER VI.

Origin and Relationship op the Zulu-Kafir and other Zingian Tribes 59

CHAPTER VII.

Early Accounts op Natal — History op the Rulers — Reign op

Chaka 68

% i i CHAPTER VIII. t

PAG«

What the Dutch did and suffered m Natal, and -how the District became a British Colony 79

CHAPTER IX.

Appearance and pursuits op the Natives 94

CHAPTER X.

Zulu-Kafir Law and Government ; their influence upon the Native Mind 115

CHAPTER XL

Superstitious Views and Practices op the People; "Wizards, Priests, and Doctors 132

CHAPTER XIL

Matrimonial Affairs in Zulu-land 163

CHAPTER XIIL

Character ; — Moulding Agencies ; — Bent and Capacities of the Native Mind 174

CHAPTER XIV.

Zulu Language and Literature 187

CHAPTER XV.

History of the American Zulu Mission from 1834 to 1843, — The first nine years of its existence 201

CHAPTER XVL

History of the American Zulu Mission from 1843 to 1862 213

CHAPTER XVIL

History op the Inland American Mission, to TJm^ilikazi and HIS People, at Mosiga 227

CONTENTS.

'chapter XVIII.

FAGB

European Missions to Zulu-land — English "Wesleyan, Norwegian, Berlin, Hanoverian, Church op England, and Roman

Catholic 238

CHAPTER XIX.

The Geological Features of Natal 255

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXI.

The Fauna of Natal — Beasts, 289

CHAPTER XXII.

Reptiles 305

CHAPTER XXIII.

Insects and Birds - 320

CHAPTER XXIV.

European Enterprise in Natal 332

CHAPTER XXV.

Present state of affairs in Zulu-land 345

1*

CHAPTEH I.

FIRST EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA.

Ordained and married, one day, among tlie hills of Vermont, the next brings us to Boston, and the third finds us out on the tossing, briny deep, speeding our course to the south-eastern shores of Africa. Two months' fair sailing shows us the Cape of Good Hope, Africa's great southern land-mark, rising out of the deep blue sea, and makes our hearts leap again to see and feel solid earth. Six weeks we wait here among kind. Christian friends, to find a ship bound direct to Natal ; and then thirty-two days of rough, risky sailing brings us to our long desired haven, than which no land had ever looked to us more beautiful.

The nautical "Rosebud," must now be exchanged for a Boer's wagon ; the sailing ship for a tented traveling house; the horses of Neptune for a Dutchman's nag and a dozen African bullocks.

"Now I leave you to take charge of the wagons,

while I ride over yonder and make a few purchases.

Drive out a little way up the plain, find out a good

place in which to outspan for the night. Be diligent

ZU:.U-LAND.

for the rain is coming." So said a brother missionary as we were about leaving the few rude signs of civilization in Durban, and setting off for a mission station forty miles away to the north. Friends in Natal had furnished us with a wagon, oxen, and all the essential paraphernalia of that interesting and important institution, an African ox-wagon — a leader and driver for the oxen, a chest of food, bedding, native attendants, cooking utensils, and tea dishes — indeed, all that was essential for three or four days' sojourn in the fields or along the coast, wherever a way can be found, over plains, hills and rivers, and among savages, till we reach the station of our missionary companion, who has come to bring us to his home.

Just here and now it was that the realities and romance of mission life in a strange land, on a barbarous coast, began to roll up like the rush and mingling of waves about the point where two seas meet. I had already heard something about outspanning,'' — just enough to know that it signified to set the oxen free from their semi-civilized gear, that combination of iron, wood, and thongs cut from the hide of buffalo or other animal, a gear such as nothing but a good deal of English ingenuity, Dutchified and Zuluized, could ever devise or execute. But to understand all the conditions of a good place in which to " outspan for the night," — to know that such a place ought to be a smooth, open, grassy plat on the lee side of a thick bush, which shall break off the driving wind, perchance the pelting rain, with grass, wood, and water near at hand for man and beast, was a kind of knowledge to which I had not yet attained. Such a spot, however, I was now charged

FIRST EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA.

and expected to find ; and not for myself and family alone, but for that of a veteran, whose practiced eye, the moment he should ride up an hour hence, would see all our defects at a glance, and lead him to wonder how we could be so stupid as to stop for a night just out of reach of all that is desirable.

But we must do our best. After some careful cogitation along the road, as to how and whither we shall proceed, we conclude to leave the question of a place in which to pitch our rolling tents to the better discretion of our native attendants.

Morning breaks upon our encampment. The rains have raised the rivers. The Umgeni is high ; but the tall driver, wading half through, thinks it fordable. The threatening clouds are beginning to pour their torrents upon the earth. As the day declines we outspan again ; — no difficulty is there in finding water now ! Amid the falling torrents the fire is to be kindled, by which to prepare our evening repast. This done — we dismiss our attendants to find shelter and lodgings, if they can, among the kraals of their own people, while we close the curtains of the tented wagon and prepare to pass the night in the broad, open fields, ever and anon all shining, as they are, with the lightning's flash, or trembling with the thunder's terrific crash. But we " laid us down and slept, and awoke, for the Lord sustained us."

The morning is we^^, and cloudy, but we must journey on. We resume our northward course. Stopping for dinner, the rains keep us till night, and then till morning dawns.

\Ye have now learned several important lessons, one

ZULU-LAXD.

of which is, that a leaky wagon is only fit for fair weather ; and anothei is, that it is easier to go without tea than to gather wood, kindle a fire, and make it in the rain.

The next day is fine, fresh, sweet ; everything is pleasant and inviting, except the slippery roads and swollen streams. Waiting a day for the Umtongati to subside, we venture in and pass over, though the water comes up some six or eight inches into the body of the wagon. Delayed by rains and rivers, we reach the Umhlali on Saturday, the sun fast setting in the west. Our food is all gone ; the river is higher than any we have crossed, and lies withal, right in the way of the station we seek. And besides, there is an alligator here ; we know there is, for he was found basking in the sun by the river side as we drove up. To spend the Sabbath where we are, within two hours' drive of the home we seek, — and nothing but sugar and salt to eat — how can we ? Leave our wagon here in the field, with all the heavier luggage ; put the two teams, twenty-four oxen, together ; put the trunks of clothing upon the bedstead, itself on a level with the top-rail of the wagon body ; put the bedding on the trunks, and the women and children on the bed, in the roof of the wagon. Now put the man who is to lead the oxen on a horse that can swim ; choose the best of the two drivers and give him the best whip. Such is the plan — these the orders. ''All ready— Start !" Crash Stop ! what's that?" The bedstead has broken down; — must be raised again, and propped up. All is in order. "Ready— Start!— Stop!" The front oxen have pulled away from the leader and returned to the shore. " Send

FIRST EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA.

Another leader to his help ; straighten the team." The orders are obeyed. " All right again. Now, go ahead !" We enter the stream, — down, down goes the wagon — up, up comes the water. The oxen are swimming — the water rushes over the top of the wagon body, fills it full. But our brave oxen go forward and we soon ascend the opposite bank in safety.

In about two hours more, as the silent shades of Saturday evening come stealing over us, we find ourselves safely arrived at the station we were seeking in the beautiful valley of the Umvoti.

Weeks pass away. The native language occupies the most of my thoughts. How to speak it as they speak it — this, for the present, is the great object of study. At length there comes a chieftain — Umusi is his name — and says he wants a missionary. We go to find out his abode, the locality of his people, and select a place for a station. The journey is made on horseback. The first day brings us to the station of the Rev. Daniel Lindley, who is to be our exploring companion. Towards the close of the second day we come up from our windings along the banks of the Umhloti. Fairly at the top of the steep ascent, on the margin of a broad, high table land, there we stand, enveloped in a dense fog, and giving a bewildered, prying gaze at the three paths into which the one we had followed thus far, now divides. Hoping to be directed in our course, at this point, by the sight of a high hill at the base of which the chieftain had his abode, we had left our native guide to fall in the rear and take a nearer footpath, which our horses could not follow. We must decide for ourselves which of the three paths before us

ZULU-LAND.

may be the right one. AYe take the wrong, and journey on. The path promises well at first ; but presently we begin to feel that this is not the course we ought to pursue. Still, it may be the right path, and we journey on.

We presently begin to wonder if we are not almost there. How long the road is, and nobody to be seen on the way. "VVe are probably in the wrong, but how shall we get right ? We cannot go back ; night would be upon us before we could reach any shelter. In fact it is already upon us ; nor is there always light enough for us to tell whether we are in the path or out of it, except as we judge by the sound of the foot-falling of the beasts we are riding. Nor can we rid ourselves of the impression, now and then, that we are passing along the edge of some fearful precipice. The dense fog we encountered an hour ago has changed, first into a thick mist, next, into a drizzly rain. In a strange place, a new, wild country ; knowing that the hyena, or prairie wolf, often follows the horseman, sometimes in packs, to pick him up and take care of him, should he or his horse meet with any mishap ; knowing too that the leopard may be lurking in any dark ravine or bushy nook through which we pass, the sign of anything human, the cry of a child, of a sheep or goat, cow or dog — anything to tell us that we are not far from a human habitation, be it never so humble and rude, would be music in our ears.

But look ! Hark ! There is a light in the distance ; and do you not hear voices ? We reach the spot, and find that a company of natives have just selected this as the site of their new house. We ask for corn to

FIRST EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA.

^ive our hungry horses, and a hut for ourselves. They say they have neither, and they seem to tell the truth. Offering to lead us over a plain and beyond a hill, to a large, flourishing hraal^ with assurance that, once there, we can get all we want, we ride on for another hour.

Wet, tired, hungry, we are glad to find in a Zulu hut a shelter from the rain, though we must come down upon all fours to enter, the door, like all doors to these rude African houses, being only about two feet high and eighteen inches wide. In the absence of anything like a chair, we take our seat upon a piece of wood, a short, crooked pole which marks off a part of the house as an apartment for calves. Soon the people have gathered about us in great numbers, old men and young, mothers and maidens, boys and girls, an astonished, motley group, glad we have come, wondering what brought us thither, and not a little pleased and surprised that we can talk with them in their own tongue. They give us the best they have, though it be but a calabash of milk and a basket of boiled maize. It is late, and time to retire. The most of the people withdraw ; some remain, between whom and ourselves, together with the calves, a dog or two, an army of rats and mice, the one-roomed, smoky hut is to be shared. Commending ourselves to the care of that kind Providence whose presence may be found in all places, and recounting between ourselves the events and labors of the day, the mat our host has brought is spread upon the ground. With our blankets spread upon the mat, we get sleep enough to be ready to greet refreshed the morning's dawn.

And now, as the birds begin their joyous carol, ming- 2

ZULU-LAND.

ling their sweet music with the song of the merry brook that flows at the foot of the hillock on which we have encamped, from the dark, low hut we emerge into the bright light. We think that our eyes have seldom ' fallen upon a landscape of more native beauty. Looking along the hills and valleys that stretch out, up and down the country, covered as they now are with flowers of various hue and shape and grass of richest green, fragrant withal as a rose, we fancy we have found something like another Paradise, where "only man is vile."

Admiring the prospect before us and turning his eyes to a green, oval field, across the brook, half a mile away, my friend Lindley said, If we can only find a perennial spring in that region, you cannot have a better place for a station." We passed over, found the spring we required, and fixed upon it as a place of future abode and labor, calling it after the name of the brook upon whose sources it is situated, Umsunduzi.

Returning to Umlazi, where, of late, I had been making my abode, I procure a wagon and oxen, engage a driver and leader, pack up such tools and other efiects as I shall require to erect a house in the wild open fields, far from all the helps of civilized life — axe and spade, saw and auger, hammer and chisel, glass and nails, grindstone and vise, food and clothing, bedding and books, a large wagon well filled, and prepare to start. My oxen are fresh — some of them not more than half trained. The driver and leader with Zulu boys engaged to aid in the enterprise before us are well nigh as wild, and quite as uncivilized as the wildest of the oxen. Having "inspanned" and brought the oxen and wagon into all due traveling relations after the or-

FIRST EXPERIENCE IN /.ERICA.

dinary Dutcli and Zulu fashion, the driver takes his stand on the front of the wagon, gives his mammoth whip a crack, shouts to the leader, in Zulu, "Hamba;" to the oxen in Dutch, ''Loop;" and the whole establishment begins at once to 'Hrek.''

After advancing a few rods, we must descend a long, steep hill ; the driver has forgotten to stop and chain the wheel ; the wagon begins to crowd heavy upon the wheel oxen, and they upon the next in front ; now all are on the trot, then all on the gallop; soon some have taken fright at the rattle of the wagon, and begin to bellow, and presently all are racing down-hill at the top of their speed, and the wagon follows ; driver and leader meantime shouting to their team, now in Dutch, now in Zulu, and now in something else, to stop and go steady; while the anxious proprietor attracted by the tumult to the top of the hill, stands watching the progress of the lively operation, and expecting every moment to see the wagon and all in it dashed to pieces. But driver and leader, finding it impossible to stay the downward, rushing course of events, give themselves up wisely, to keeping the team straight, and finally fetch up in the plain below, the oxen all on their legs, the wagon on its wheels, and with only a few articles broken beyond repair.

The contemplated station is fifty miles distant, and the road for a great part of the way must be found or made as w^e go. Three days of toil and travel, now to hunt up lost oxen, now to boggle in some river's deep sand and water, now to find a wagon road through some ravine, with an occasional surprise from the startled uprising and flight of buck or buffalo that might be

ZULU-LAXD.

lying in tlie tall grass of the fields we traverse, bring us to the site of our new home.

In a note-book kept in those days, I find a memorandum made on the day of our arrival, September 30, 1847, — "Written at the close of day in my wagon, while the rain is falling in torrents, amid dazzling flashes of lightning and almost deafening roar of thunder."

The Zulu boys make the oxen fast by the wagon for the night, and go to seek lodgings at a neighboring kraal ; the curtains of the wagon are closed and made fast fore and aft, the light extinguished, and the lone occupant of the premises is beginning to lose all consciousness of time, place and circumstance, when a pack of prowling hyenas set up one of the most hideous cries that ever entered the ear of man. They seem to be passing along and approaching us, just down under the hill only a few rods from our encampment. I had never heard them before, though I had heard of them. The doleful, hideous cry sends a chill through my veins, raises the oxen from their recumbent posture, and sets them all a-stir. I strike a light, open the tent, set up a counter shout. They stop their cry, and move off in another direction.

" Hail ! king ! white man ! teacher ! Where is thy Book ? How does it look, what does it say, what will it do? let us see it, hear it, have it, learn it." Such was the salutation and welcome which a company of boys gave us the next day. They had heard of cmcoming, had seen the white wagon outspanned in the field ; and now, leaving their herds of cattle on the hills, they had come down to see us, make us welcome, •

FIRST EXPERIENCE IN AFRICA.

and ask to read the Book which they had understood it to be our object in coming there to teach them.

" Si za kwenza njani na ? What shall we do ?" was the reply. "No house to live in. We were just starting for the bush to cut some poles and put up a shelter for our heads. But you shall see the Book and be taught to read it." So bringing out a copy, we commenced teaching them the alphabet.

The next day we had a still larger class, more boys, and a few girls. Some of the latter, being nurses, brought their infant brothers and sisters with them, having them bound, a-la Zulu, on their backs with goat skins ; so that now, the second day, we have three classes, a class of boys, a class of girls, and an infant class.

Meantime our own boys, as we were accustomed to call our native helpers, are cutting timber in the bush, and hauling it home for a house. Setting posts in the ground, weaving in wattles between them, plastering up and down, inside and out, with a kind of clay found there, putting on the frame of a roof and covering it with thatch, washing the walls with white clay found in the neighborhood, making also here and there a door and window, we have a house of two rooms, each ten by twelve feet, of w^hich we think, perhaps, as much as Queen Victoria of her palace.

Our work is now begun, at our first station, Umsun-

DUZI.

2 *

ZULU-LAND.

CHAPTER 11.

TERRA NATALIS, CHRISTMAS LAND; AS SEEN BY EARLY VOYAGERS.

From deserts -vrild and many a pathless wood

Of savage climes where I have wandered lon^,

Whose hills and streams are yet ungraced by song,

I bring, illustrious friend, this garland rude.

The offering, though uncouth, in kindly mood

Thou wilt regard, if haply there should be

'Mong meaner things, the flower simplicity,

Fresh from coy Nature's virgin solitude. Pringle.

It was about the middle of December, 1497, that Vasco de Gama passed the last beacon, a cross which his pioneer predecessor, Bartholomew Diaz, had set up about two hundred leagues to the east of the " Stormy cape." Putting out now more to sea, he sailed to the north-east till the 25th of December, when he made land again. As this was Christmas day, in honor of our Saviour's birth, the country was called Tierra de Natal, or land of the Nativity.

"This day God came by human birth.

Atoned himself for all on earth : Thou beauteous land this love recall. And be for ever sweet Natal."

Such was the discovery and naming of this land of Natal, from and about which I write. But Vasco de Gama

CHRISTMAc-LAND.

was not tlie first voyager to these distant shores. The earliest history bearing upon the subject, dates from the diluvian age, and the realms of Ararat. It gives us a glimpse at movements made then and there for the peopling of this whole continent. In the 10th chapter of Genesis, we find that Africa fell to Ham and his sons. The second of his sons, Mizraim, is generally supposed to have planted himself first in Egypt, and to have spread from thence over the neighboring regions. Possibly some son of his, some grandson, or great grandson pushed ofi" towards the south, and gave birth to some tribe which wandered on till it reached the southern point of the continent, and finally gave origin to the clans now known as the Hottentots and Bushmen. But in respect to the tribes that inhabit the land of Natal and adjacent districts, I may have more to say in other pages.

About six hundred years before the Christian era, Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, he who fought Josiah, king of Judah, and slew him at Megiddo,* fitted out an expedition and sent it by sea to learn the form and limits of Libya, — as this land of the sun was then called. The habits and prejudices of his own people, the ancient Egyptians, not being such as to fit them for the navigator's life, Necho procured sailors from among the Phoenicians. The fleet seems to have been large, and the voyage long. Nor is this strange, when we consider how rude must have been their vessels, and how many the obstacles with which they had to contend. Sailing down the Red Sea, they entered the Indian ocean, and thence pursued a plodding course along

* 2 Kings xxiii.

ZUL ;-LAXD.

Africa's eastern coast. On wliatsoever part of the coast they might be when the rainy season set in, it was the practice of these patient mariners to hiy up their ships, go ashore, dig and sow the land, reap the grain, and then put to sea again, and pass on. Having spent two years in this way, the third brought them round to the Pillars of Hercules, (the Straits of Gibraltar,) into the Mediterranean Sea, and so back to Egypt.

Since it is scarcely possible that a fleet creeping thus along the coast, should have passed a splendid harbor, without entering and landing for a season, must we not suppose that Pharaoh Necho's Phoenician navigators, could they come up from the graves in which they have slept more than two thousand years, would lay a just claim to the credit of being the first foreigners to set their eyes and plant their feet on these enticing shores ? After two or three years' travel and tossing in such new far-off land and water, they went home, no doubt —

"Full of new and strange adventures, Marvels many and many wonders."

The Phoenicians ie'mg men of letters, the first to invent and develop alphabetical writing, of course the Admiral of the fleet kept a Journal of their experience and observations ; and, if Necho had no newspaper, nor press of any kind, in which to have it printed, who can question that he got the gallant admiral to deliver the substance of it as a course of lectures in the City Hall, the Park, or Academy ? But were the people prepared to credit the weather-beaten mariner's wonderful tale ? It would seem not. As in the case of the "young man" in the days of Hiawatha, so it seems to have been with the old navigator in the days of Necho.

CLRISTMAS-LAND.

''From his wanderings far to eastward, From the regions of the morning, From the shining land of Wabun, Homeward now returned lagoo — The great traveler, the great boaster, Full of new and strange adventures. Marvels many and many wonders.

And the people of the village Listened to him as he told them Of his marvelous adventures, Laughing, answered him in this wise : ' Ugh ! it is indeed lagoo !

No one else beholds such wonders.'

''He had seen, he said, a water Bigger than the Big-Sea-Water, Broader than the Gitche Gumee, Bitter, so that none could drink it ! At each other looked the warriors, Looked the women at each other.

Smiled, and said, 'It cannot be so ! Kaw !' they said, ' It cannot be so V "

Even the much-traveled Herodotus found- some things in the navigators' story which he could neither comprehend nor credit. Thus, they related that, in the course of the voyage, while they were passing the most southern coast of Africa, they were surprised to find that tliey had the sun on their right hand, that is, to the north of them. Repeating this part of their story, and handing it down for our perusal, the learned " father of history" adds, "but, for my part, I do not believe the assertion, though others may." We are indebted to the historian's doubts for the notice of an incident which confirms our faith. To men of our day, who know more than Herodotus did about the shape of the earth and its relation to the sun, the navigators' "assertion" not only presents no difficulty, but really

ZULU-LAND.

affords a strong proof that tliej made the voyage ascribed to them, and gave a correct account of it.

The sun continued to run his daily, yearly course, nations to rise, and kings to reign ; but for two thousand years after the days of Necho, little more was known to the foreigner about the distant south-land of which we speak. Indeed, all that was ever known seems to have been forgotten. To all beyond the pale of its own tribes, this extreme of the African continent was as though it had never been.

Discovering, at length, the mysterious powers of the magnet, the mariner was inspired with courage to strike out more boldly into the open sea, and go in search of new lands, or new routes to those already known. In the year "J 486, Bartholomew Diaz was fitted out by the king of Portugal with three ships, to find a new way to the East Indies. For nearly a hundred years the Portuguese had been gradually extending their discoveries and their trade along the western coast of Africa.

"And now, stout Diaz, hugging well the shore, Has passed each spot where vessel came before, — New lands and scenes their aching eyes define, And on, and further still, extends the line."

Diaz succeeded in passing the Cape of Good Hope, though in a storm, and at so great a distance that he did not see it. Reaching Algoa Bay they were glad to set their feet on solid earth, and rest awhile. Here they made a wooden cross, and setting it up, celebrated the mass. But on this African shore they saw and heard nothing of India, and the crew were now bent on returning home. Diaz persuaded them to go on three